I recently embarked on a six-month bender that began with me tripping acid in an infinity pool in Cabo San Lucas, continued through a couch-hopping spree in San Diego, and ended with a luxury vacation to rehab in Florida.
Let me rewind a bit to set the stage for the severe lack of fucks given from beginning to end in this story, because this shit is about to get pretty fucking dark.
I was living in North Carolina and working for a slave driver at a marketing company as his underpaid bitch. With creative abuse to my liver as my only refuge and my fuse shortening by the day, I knew I had to take drastic action. By take drastic action, I mean get the fuck out of there, shun responsibility, and get laid by a halfway decent looking broad.
You see, Newton's third law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, and this story is a perfect illustration of that. At this dehumanizing vortex that the outside world called a "job", I was on salary. Salary, as any professional is well aware, is a code word for "greasy fucking swindle that employers offer to desperate twenty-somethings in exchange for their happiness, social life, sense of optimism, and soul."
Nearing the end of my tenure as a salaried employee, I was relatively sure the concept of humans having a "soul" was a foolish myth most likely invented to placate the naive and stupid when they asked more intelligent individuals if there's any significance to us being on this stupid fucking rock.
If you were to describe my philosophical journey from college grad to jaded brick in the wall, you could accurately say I went from optimistic individualist to hedonistic nihilist. After spending a little too long on the grind, my motivation to maintain the appearance of a productive member of society quickly devolved into a lifestyle that one might say were more in the moral "gray area".
Things like remaining civically engaged and voting for the candidate I thought would better the country turned into masturbating into the sock I was about to wear into the office while I watching the same 45 second money shot scene in "Nailin' Paylin" for the third time in a week. Healthy romantic relationships turned into banging fat chicks and forty-year-olds because it was easy and I'm not above going for low-hanging fruit. Depositing money in my 401k became depositing fishscale cocaine into my nose on a Wednesday morning while I worked from home, invited the fat chick over, fucked her, and didn't pull out. I never became a degenerate gambler with my money, but to quote Eddie Murphy, I threw my dick on the crap table many a night (or in this case, morning).
On an animalistic level, that lifestyle can be fun, but to be honest, I was miserable. My self-esteem was at an all-time low, I didn’t look forward to anything, and my socks were stiff all the time.
One July afternoon, I decided I had enough, got loaded full of narcotics, and messaged my boss on Skype with my two weeks’ notice. My boss, the manipulative fuck that that he is, guilt tripped me into staying while he found a replacement. Five soul-sucking weeks after I put in my notice, I decided I'd pull a page out of my Tinder playbook and apply my natural instincts in dating to my professional life.
Ghost.
Days later, I was driving cross-country to meet up with my California girl, fly to an all-inclusive resort in Mexico, eat some LSD, and forget that the past couple of years had ever happened.
Mexico, as it usually is, was fucking grand. Surrounded with opportunities for debauchery, alcohol flowing like the Rio Grande, and my slapdick boss thousands of miles away never to be seen again, I was in a pretty good mood for the first time in a long time. It may have also helped that the girl who came along with me was a smokeshow degenerate who kicked off the trip by disposing of her dress and immediately getting on all fours the moment we entered the hotel room.
We spent the next day in an infinity pool tripping balls and fully taking advantage of the booze element of our “all-inclusive” package while we overlooked the Gulf of California. It was definitely some high quality bucket list shit and the remainder of the trip was fantastic as well.
After our international dalliance, we flew to San Diego, my new place of residence even though I hadn’t yet found a room, and continued to see each other. She quickly became the first girl I had actually fallen for in a long time and boy did I fall hard.
Along with my newfound liberation, she became my antidepressant, and in a short time, I went from being an absolutely miserable fuck to assuming a zen-like peace reminiscent of Peter Gibbons. I was so carefree that I suspended any sense of responsibility, neglecting to find an apartment while I slept in her bed and couch hopped around the city when I couldn’t stay with her.
Now, I’d like to interject that I’ve always had a non-discrimination policy with my drug use, which, admittedly, has been storied and diverse. It’s always been my contention that a substance is a substance is a substance and I’ve never been one to attach much credence to societal stigma. On the other hand, I do realize how my shenanigans might look to a less open-minded person. Surely some would call me a piece of shit addict; I always preferred to think of myself as a renaissance man.
Well-aware of how my lifestyle may be perceived by others, especially the ladies, I long held off with any sort of serious dating. However, with my new tenderoni being a hardcore alcoholic and a light dabbler in other substances, I was pretty sure she’d spare me the moralistic bullshit. In a sense, I was right, because when she caught me smoking heroin in her bathroom one evening, her outrage was more about the lack of permission than the blob of dope on my foil.
Justified as she may have been, a fair amount of the scumbags I usually rolled with assured me she was overreacting. Even if that was actually the case, I speculated, it still gave her a good excuse to get rid of me after one too many cringe worthy performances I regretfully attribute to floppy dope dick. None the wiser at the time, she likely attributed it to me being a really awful lay.
However, it was a moot point. I decided to lay in the bed I’d made and resign myself to the fact that I ruined things with the first girl I truly cared for in a very long time.
My antidepressant was gone.
Before I knew what had hit me, I returned to my valley of despair, low self-esteem, self-hate, and general lack of purpose. With nothing in my life to coax out endorphins or oxytocin, it was clear I needed to fix my situation and I decided it was time to commit myself to a bender like I had been ready to commit to that girl.
I was presented with a circumstance which could be seen through very different lenses. Most people would likely see me as an unemployed, homeless drug addict. However, I viewed this moment in my life as a period of time to enjoy couch naps, not pay rent, and dedicate a lot of time to my main passion--getting loaded.
I’ve always been the type to truly dedicate myself to my goals and this instance was no different. The next few months were filled with an array of substances including marijuana, alcohol, LSD, magic mushrooms, ecstasy, molly, whippets, poppers, cocaine, crack, oxycodone, hydrocodone, black tar heroin, China white heroin, Adderall, methamphetamine, Diet Coke, Krispy Kreme apple fritters, and a rotund girl who needed to hit the fucking gym. Unfortunately, I never managed to find any ketamine, but sometimes we gotta learn to live with regrets (HOV!).
I was a rolling stone, hopping from couch to couch and occasionally sleeping in my truck. The madness continued until it ended up towed and I was forced to sleep under a tarp in a ditch. After spending the night in the cold and having to sneak in the backyard of a stranger’s house to plug in my phone charger so I could at least enjoy a few happy minutes browsing PornHub, I figured, you know, this might be a wake-up call. It took one night outside for my view to shift to that other lens. Once again, I felt like a worthless loser. I was a fuck up. I was unlovable. I had no redeeming qualities. And so I decided I should probably go to rehab, an option over which I would have previously chosen death.
Within 3 days, I was on a flight to Orlando, and upon arrival, was immediately driven to a facility in the middle of the state. Admittedly, I was scared shitless. You see, the further you venture into central Florida, the higher the frequency of Confederate flags you see a’waving. It was disconcerting to say the least.
Upon intake to the facility, I passed the initial drug test with flying colors, popping positive for every goddamned drug imaginable. Soon I was ushered into detox with a bunch of other addicts meandering around like zombies. They seemed a lot worse off than me.
I would soon find out that a lot definitely were and not just in terms of their addiction. In fact, I may be a reprehensible dope fiend, but there are a few things you can’t take away from me: I have a college education, I’m hilarious, my teeth are stellar, and my hair game is unfuckwitable. I’m not one to toot my own horn, but compared to a lot of these dirtbag junkies, I was kind of the shit.
Combine those advantages with what I assume to be a healthy dose of desperation mixed with lack of options, and I noticed more than a few girls raising their eyebrow at the kid. It didn’t hurt that a lot of them had that “Marla from Fight Club” swag that I have a low-key fetish for. Rehab, much to my surprise, wasn’t so bad after all. A few weeks later and I was starting to feel pretty good about myself. Therapy and (real) antidepressants helped too, but I would attribute the most of my improvement to desperate, hot junkie girls giving me the time of day. I've said it before and I'll say it again: new pussy is like medicine for the soul.
Since getting out of rehab, I’ve gotten a job that doesn’t make me want to gouge out my eyes, continued taking medication, stayed sober, and gotten in a committed relationship with a girl who treats me like I’m a pretty cool guy even when she's not locked in a confined institution. I have to say life is pretty good.
Sure, there are drawbacks to being sober. I'm living in a halfway house which requires me to attend Narcotics Anonymous meetings, waking up for work at 6am is just as awful as I remember it being, and not getting fucked up whenever I want kind of sucks. But overall, that's better than the life I was living.
I don't have to worry about the police. Piss test? Not a problem. Go ahead and have a staring contest with my dick while it flows freely, in fact. I don't feel like a piece of shit for the lifestyle I live. I don't have to worry about being a shitty lay because of floppy dope dick. It's been a while since I've seriously contemplated suicide. And most importantly, I have money to eat good. So much so, in fact, that I'm getting fat. Getting fat is my biggest worry in life right now. Fortunately, since I'm in a relationship with a ride or die who doesn't give a fuck and society has convenient double standards about that sort of thing for men, I'll deal with it when I deal with it. No sweat.
The moral of the story, for those of you who aren’t good at reading between the lines, is that if you ever feel shitty about yourself, put yourself in a situation where everyone else is a bit more of a loser than you and you’ll start to feel better. And I guess don't do drugs even though they're fucking awesome until they're not.